fun

Blanket!

Well, I got the blanket for Matthew (finally found out his name) finished! I put it in the dryer at 11:00 last night.

I was trying to figure out how many hours I have into it and I think it’s somewhere between 30 and 50; maybe more than 50, but no less than 30… I figure that I worked on it for 3-7 hours a day, for about 10 days.

The reason it took so long is because this is fingering-weight, baby yarn. So, it’s tiny yarn, using a tiny hook. I used an F hook for the white yarn and a G hook for the blue/multi yarn. Though the same weight, the white yarn was not quite wound as tightly as the blue; so it has a wider gauge – hence the need for a smaller hook. Excluding the edge, the entire blanket is done in (US) triple crochet.

So, without further adieu…

Here is a shot of the whole blanket:

My OCD makes me cringe at the asymmetry of the square placement (two colored squares on one end and one colored square on the other). But, I knew I didn’t want to just make a giant square. It had to be a rectangle and it had to be in a 3×4 configuration. Not many options there. Hopefully mama isn’t weird like me!

Here is the edging:

I love this edge! It consists of single, double and triple crochet stitches. This makes a curled, sort of wave edge. I didn’t want to do something too ruffled, after all, this is for a boy!

Here is a close-up of one of the colored blocks:

I used the join-as-you-go method for joining the squares. I thought of doing the entire blanket in these particular squares. But, after setting a few next to each other, decided against it. It was just too much color – too busy. It needed large blocks of white to offset the blue and make it stand out.

There were about a million ends to weave in. That alone took me about four hours, last night! That’s the worst thing about color changes… They look great, but they’re a pain. But… In the end… It’s worth it…

So, there you have it! Matthew’s blanket! I am going to track grandma down today and give it to her. 🙂